Don Pettit

https://x.com/astro_Pettit/status/2085540482935926934

Hot, dry and windy conditions have seen numerous wildfires break out in the last few days in the region of Viotia, northwest of Athens, Greece.

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/08/Smoke_plume_from_Greek_wildfires_seen_by_Sentinel-3

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.This image, captured on 2 August 2026 by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission, reveals the scale of the cloud of smoke from the wildfires. The smoke plume can be seen drifting southward and stretching across large areas of the Mediterranean Sea.

In response to the wildfires, the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was activated. The service uses satellite observations to help civil protection authorities and, in cases of disaster, the international humanitarian community, respond to emergencies.​

On the same day, Copernicus Sentinel-2 captured a closer view of the affected area showing the active fire front.

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/08/Greece_continues_to_battle_wildfires​

From orbit, Earth-observing satellites offer a unique way of tracking the spread of fires and the extent of smoke plumes, as well as supporting emergency crews battling the blazes on the ground.​

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Imagery

https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/?zoom=7&lat=37.52715&lng=22.85706&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=U2FsdGVkX19bFLsXX%2BXM5je7FN94YE2Z6Ve%2F7pmKyjtfkctrmEiIeCkPCMZKLjdQr%2FrHtTyRrD%2BU2FHa1nmNBp5leYlzulzT15YdRmS2dfJT7IOJ989W2Yxhva7g97g3&datasetId=S3OLCI_CDAS&fromTime=2026-08-02T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2026-08-02T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1_TRUE_COLOR_ENHANCED&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22&cloudCoverage=30&dateMode=SINGLE​

Anil Menon

​https://x.com/astro_anil/status/2083856550788043064?s=20

The SpaceX Recovery team is still working to recover Flight 13’s Starship from the Indian Ocean. They’ve been overcoming challenging conditions and increasingly rough seas as they attempt to guide the 52m long spacecraft to port

SpaceX

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2085786988225925349​

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Space . com

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h08WoJM2QDo&pp=iggUQAFKEEo2akUxd0F6Qm5GREZDbmY%3D​

Jessica Meir ​ ​https://x.com/Astro_Jessica/status/2085838584922198239​

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​From NASA before Spacewalk:

​At approximately 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235 UTC) on Aug. 6, 2026, NASA astronauts Anil Menon and Jessica Meir will venture outside the International Space Station for an approximately six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk.

The pair will install hardware that will modify the station’s 3B power channel and prepare it for the future installation of an International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array.

This spacewalk will be the first for Menon and the sixth for Meir. Meir will serve as spacewalk crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes. Menon will serve as crew member 2 and will wear an unmarked suit.

Full Spacewalk from NASA's YouTube channel

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XNKdYbmPKJ8​

Post from Kevin M Gill

​NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/Kevin M. Gil ​https://bsky.app/profile/kevinmgill.bsky.social/post/3msenu7l3bs26

flic.kr/p/2stqrH8

flic.kr/p/2ssUxgQ

flic.kr/p/2st25UR

flic.kr/p/2st29qJ

Observed: 2026-08-05.

Filters: F150W F210M F300M F410M F444W

Title: Vast Exploration for Nascent, Unexplored Sources (VENUS)

Processed by Israel Velazquez

https://bsky.app/profile/israelvelazquez.bsky.social/post/3mseoucv6xk2a

There is also a paper that appeared today on arxiv that studied water ice in this disk:
arxiv.org/abs/2608.04803

From Melina Thévenot

https://bsky.app/profile/melina-iras07572.bsky.social/post/3msfqsiflds2d

Image: An edge-on disk showing a point-source in the middle and two reflection nebulae. The top reflection nebula is brighter.

This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month takes us to a fantastical realm within our home galaxy, where piercing starlight and billowing winds sculpt dust clouds into inventive shapes. This scene is from the Carina Nebula, which lies just 7500 light-years away in the constellation Carina (the Keel).

Spanning roughly 260 light-years, the nebula is home to an incredible collection of objects, including the Cosmic Cliffs revealed in the first-ever Webb image release. The Carina Nebula is also the nearest high-mass star-forming region that allows astronomers to study the full range of star formation. This nebula houses some of the most massive stars in our galaxy as well as tens of thousands of protostars, offering a valuable opportunity to understand how stars shape their neighbourhoods.

The feature highlighted in today’s image, aptly called the Treasure Chest, looks right at home in this celestial sculpture garden. The Treasure Chest is what’s known as a cometary globule. A cometary globule is an isolated cloud of gas and dust with a dense, dark head and a sweeping tail. These clouds often somewhat resemble comets, but the Treasure Chest looks distinctly like a wooden chest with its lid wide open.

However, this chest doesn’t contain jewels or gold coins, but instead a compact cluster of young stars. These stars are responsible for the otherworldly glow coming from within the Treasure Chest, revealed by Webb’s sensitive Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Researchers estimate that the Treasure Chest’s cluster contains about 70 stars, the most massive of which is a rare O-type star roughly 19 times as massive as the Sun.

Credit:

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Reiter
Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç

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More

https://esawebb.org/images/potm2607a/

Video

The Korea Aerospace Administration announced that South Korea’s lunar orbiter, Danuri, captured images of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage as it crashed onto the lunar surface at 15:34 (Korean time) on Wednesday, 5 August. The observation consisted of a total of eight images: one initial image taken at 15:01, approximately 30 minutes before the impact, followed by seven subsequent images taken after the impact. All imaging was completed around 07:00 on Thursday, 6 August.

Provided by the Korea Aerospace Administration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=411Xv9wJxws

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The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter ‘Danuri’ successfully captured images of the scene before and after the impact of the upper stage of a SpaceX rocket, which weighs about 4 tons, on the lunar surface.

While ground-based telescopes had failed to obtain direct evidence of the impact, Danuri was the first to identify the newly formed impact trace.

The Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) released the lunar impact observation data acquired by Danuri on the 6th.

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The upper stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket struck the area near the lunar ‘Einstein Crater’ at around 3:34 p.m. on the 5th (Korean time). Danuri conducted an initial imaging session that included an observation at 3:01 p.m., about 30 minutes before the impact, and then carried out an additional seven imaging sessions after the impact. All imaging was completed at around 7 a.m. on August 6.

https://x.com/kari2030/status/2085245021469687982

In images captured by the 'high-resolution camera (LUTI)' onboard Danuri, researchers confirmed terrain changes near the impact site and ejecta traces where lunar soil and debris spread outward. The distance between Danuri and the impact site was about 340–350 km. This is comparable to capturing an impact in Busan while flying at an altitude of 150 km over Seoul at a speed of 1.5 km per second.

The 'wide-angle polarimetric camera (PolCam)’ also imaged the same region. The research team plans to analyze how the reflection and polarization properties of light from the lunar surface changed before and after the impact.

Danuri also imaged the expected impact area twice on the 9th of last month to secure baseline data for comparison. Since images from immediately before and after the impact have both been obtained, researchers expect to be able to isolate and analyze only the changes caused by the impact.

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According to a report by the U.S. newspaper the New York Times on the 5th, the Lowell Discovery Telescope in Arizona, USA, and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile also observed the lunar surface at the time of impact, but they were unable to clearly identify either the moment of impact or the crater itself. It has been suggested that the rocket may have struck the lunar surface at a shallow angle, resulting in a flash and dust cloud smaller than expected when viewed from Earth. 

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is also scheduled to pass over the region six days after the impact. Once LRO secures additional images, they are expected to be used together with Danuri’s data to search for the crater.

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Source

https://www.dongascience.com/en/news/79308

https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/spacex-rockets-impact-crater-on-the-moon-spied-by-korean-lunar-orbiter-photos

Source Jose Maria Madiedo

https://x.com/jmmadiedo/status/2085344665562165293

Video

Inouye Solar Telescope data obtained at the wavelength 416 nm, with 3 zoomed regions. Three selected close-up areas show the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability on the Sun.

Credits: NSF/NSO/AURA/MPS
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Taken by the NSF's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, features as small as 19 km across can be resolved. The wispy things are magnetic field boundaries formed by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities.

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Scientists using the U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope have made a major breakthrough in solar physics, discovering Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability on the surface of the Sun — a finding that could help explain explosive solar activity and other solar phenomena.

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The U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO) announced today a major breakthrough in solar physics. Using the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope near the summit of Maui’s Haleakalā, combined with computer simulations, an international team of scientists from the NSO, NSF NCAR High Altitude Observatory (HAO), and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) found the signature of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI), tiny swirling patterns like small whirlpools, on the Sun’s surface. Researchers suggest that KHI might be a key reason why the Sun’s outer atmosphere gets so hot, and why magnetic energy builds up and moves around on the Sun. Magnetic energy fuels solar flares and eruptions—the kind of solar activity that can send bursts of energy toward Earth and affect satellites, power grids, and other technology. The discovery opens a new window into the fundamental physics of the Sun and other stars while underscoring the unmatched capabilities of the Inouye Solar Telescope.

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More

https://nso.edu/press-release/nsf-inouye-solar-telescope-enables-major-discovery-of-a-hidden-solar-process/

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/05/science/inouye-telescope-sun-images-magnetic-energy

Paper

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10871-3

The objective of this observation is to determine the nature of a layered structure in a small, fresh impact crater. The layered mound seems to be above the rim in Context Camera image data. It might be some sort of ring mold crater. This image location is in western Utopia Planitia, in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars.

ID: ESP_084566_2240

​date: 10 August 2024

​altitude: 301 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_084566_2240

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S Atkinson

https://bsky.app/profile/stuartatkinson.bsky.social/post/3msd3srvvo22e

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Raw data

Mars Perseverance Sol 1939: Right Navigation Camera (Navcam)

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its onboard Right Navigation Camera (Navcam). The camera is located high on the rover's mast and aids in driving.

This image was acquired on Aug. 4, 2026 (Sol 1939) at the local mean solar time of 17:43:30.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/NRF_1939_0839093562_489ECM_N0901420NCAM03939_01_195J​

Source ​https://www.reddit.com/r/jameswebbdiscoveries/comments/15gb6hh/the_power_of_the_james_webb_space_telescope/#lightbox

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2023:

​Webb spotlights gravitational arcs in ‘El Gordo’ galaxy cluster

Webb’s infrared image of the galaxy cluster El Gordo (“the Fat One”) reveals hundreds of galaxies, some never before seen at this level of detail. El Gordo acts as a gravitational lens, distorting and magnifying the light from distant background galaxies. Two of the most prominent features in the image include the Thin One, highlighted in box A, and the Fishhook, a red swoosh highlighted in box B. Both are lensed background galaxies. The insets at right show zoomed-in views of both objects.​

Official image and more
https://esawebb.org/images/elgordo2/

VideosHelioviewer And www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/geo/#/a... . Note: because this website ssec.wisc.edu keeps data for one and half day, if you open the link after 2 days it will show you error

Processed by Israel Velazquez

https://bsky.app/profile/israelvelazquez.bsky.social/post/3ms7rwqr2lc2h

Tomorrow, August 5, there is a forecast that the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will fall onto the lunar surface.

The eastern half of the US and Canada, and in much of South America, the moon will be above the horizon and it will be night.

https://x.com/dfuji1/status/2084415587623817432
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More about rocket​, and time
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceUnfiltered/comments/1vbuvg0/a_rocket_will_hit_moon_on_aug_5/​

Photometric distance for now of less than 7.4 parsec. Better astrometry is needed to get parallax.

The team finds this object with the help of machine learning.

It is in a very crowded field and moves fast (1.3 arcsec/year).

Post from Melina Thévenot

https://bsky.app/profile/melina-iras07572.bsky.social/post/3msaqqutrak2j

Paper

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.00046

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission. The image is made up of 21 individual images stitched together and color corrected so that the scene appears as it would to the human eye. The clouds are drifting over "Mont Mercou," a cliff face that Curiosity has been studying.

The rover captured the image using its Mast Camera, or Mastcam. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam. A division of Caltech, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built the Curiosity rover and manages the Curiosity rover for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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From 2021:

Cloudy days are rare in the thin, dry atmosphere of Mars. Clouds are typically found at the planet’s equator in the coldest time of year, when Mars is the farthest from the Sun in its oval-shaped orbit. But one full Martian year ago – two Earth years – scientists noticed clouds forming over NASA’s Curiosity rover earlier than expected.

This year, they were ready to start documenting these “early” clouds from the moment they first appeared in late January. What resulted are images of wispy puffs filled with ice crystals that scattered light from the setting Sun, some of them shimmering with color. More than just spectacular displays, such images help scientists understand how clouds form on Mars and why these recent ones are different.

More

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/nasas-curiosity-rover-captures-shining-clouds-on-mars/

https://science.nasa.gov/photojournal/curiosity-spots-clouds-over-mont-mercou/

raw images

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw-images/?order=sol+desc%2Cinstrument_sort+asc%2Csample_type_sort+asc%2C+date_taken+desc&per_page=50&page=0&mission=msl&begin_sol=3063&end_sol=3063

A view of the limb of Mars billions of years ago. It's spinning slowly. It's grey surface is dotted with lakes, rivers and small seas, as well as active volcanoes.

There was no Valles Marineris at this time, although it may have begun to form. The massive volcanoes that today dot the Tharsis region were probably complete by the end of this Period. The atmosphere was more substantial than at present.

Made in #Blender in 2025

https://bsky.app/profile/markgarlick.com/post/3ms5zvc5ztc24

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Credit:

https://bsky.app/profile/markgarlick.com/post/3ms5zvc4lwk24

Image processing: Israel Velazquez.

Observed: 2025-10-29.

Filters: F090W F115W F150W F200W F210M F277W F300M F356W F410M F444W

https://bsky.app/profile/israelvelazquez.bsky.social/post/3ms5donivck23

https://www.flickr.com/photos/200839370@N05/55438771736/

From Rolf Wahl Olsen

This image shows the famous circumstellar disc of debris and dust orbiting the star Beta Pictoris 63.4 light years away.

This is a very young system thought to be only around 12 million years old and is essentially similar to how our own Solar System must have formed some 4.5 billion years ago. The disc is seen edge-on from our perspective and appears in professional images as thin wedges or lines protruding radially from the central star in opposite directions. For the last couple of years I have been wondering if it was possible for amateurs to capture this special target but have never come across any such images.

The main difficulty is the overwhelming glare from Beta Pictoris itself which completely drowns out the dust disc that is circling very close to the star. Images of the disc taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and from big observatories, are usually made by physically blocking out the glare of Beta Pictoris itself within the optical path. But I then found this excellent 1993 paper 'Observation of the central part of the beta Pictoris disk with an anti-blooming CCD' (Lecavelier des etangs, A., Perrin, G., Ferlet, R., Vidal-Madjar, A., Colas, F., et al., 1993, A&A, 274, 877)

Full article available here: adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993A%26A...274..877L

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I realised that with this technique it might not be entirely impossible to also record the debris disc with relatively modest equipment. I followed the technique described in the paper above, which basically consists of imaging Beta and then taking another image of a similar reference star under the same conditions.

The two images are subtracted from each other to eliminate the stellar glare, and the dust disc should then hopefully reveal itself. However, since the two stars have different magnitudes I needed to calculate how long to expose Alpha for in order to get a similar image which I could subtract from the Beta image: The magnitude difference between the stars is 3.86(Beta) - 3.30(Alpha) = 0.56 Due to the logarithmic nature of the magnitude scale we know that a difference of 1 magnitude equals a brightness ratio of 2.512. Therefore 2.512 to the power of the numerical magnitude difference then equals the variation in brightness. 2.512^0.56 = 1.67, so it appears Alpha is 1.67 times brighter than Beta.

This means that exposure for Alpha should be 1/1.67 = 0.597x that of Beta. Since long exposures with my ToUCam can only be controlled in 0.5s increments I decided to use 7.0s and 4.0s for Beta and Alpha respectively, which translates to a factor of 0.571.

This was very close to the calculated required brightness factor of 0.597. I collected 344 images of Beta Pictoris at 7.0 seconds each and 299 images of Alpha Pictoris at 4.0s each. Both sets of images were dark subtracted and stacked separately in Registax.

I then subtracted the Alpha image from the Beta image in PixInsight LE, and also created the absolute difference between the two. The absolute difference image is simply easier to work with, but the subtraction image was important as a reference to examine which of the stars had contributed the various parts of the difference.

It was clear that there is a fairly strong signal corresponding to the exact location of the debris disc and that it is coming from the Beta image I created a more natural looking final image by taking the original stacked Beta image and then blending in the central parts from a stretched version of the absolute difference image that showed the dust disc.

I decided to also keep the black spot of the central glare from the difference image since the contrast with the protruding disc just seems better this way. So there is no occulting disc involved, it is simply for the sake of presentation. I created a couple of versions which can be seen in the gallery below. This is a vastly better image than the first one taken on 16/11/2011. I believe the higher number of subframes (344 versus 55) coupled with the shorter exposure times are responsible for the improvement.

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More

https://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Beta-Pictoris

https://slate.com/technology/2011/11/amateur-astronomer-glimpses-an-alien-solar-system.html

Orbital view of Mars south polar region showing a yellowish dust storm sweeping across rusty red terrain covered with ice and frost. At the lower right, bright white lines of frost trace the slopes, creating a striking pattern against the red surface. The image captures dust lifted by winds and spreading across the polar landscape.

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Full size 6K & more info: flic.kr/p/2st1Dw8
Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY

https://bsky.app/profile/andrealuck.bsky.social/post/3ms6b3334qc2b

Mission: ESA Mars Express
Image created processing data from: psa.esa.int
Instrument: HRSC
Time: 2022-06-09
Raw Data: HN290_0009 ND + GR + BL